I am reading Welcome To Obamaland by James Delingpole. He’s a fantastic writer – as close to the brilliant Mark Steyn as we have in these shores. I don’t agree with everything Delingpole writes but much of it I do.
He takes apart the hysterical deification of Obama well but his targets are many. His ‘Give War A Chance’ chapter is a highlight. Two particular passages linger in the memory:
“Nor yet am I going to predict that Obama’s foreign policy will be a flop. (Who knows? Maybe Ahmadinejad really will cancel his entire nuclear weapons program because all he ever wanted was a United States president with the audacity to be hopeful.)”
I like sarcasm. Sarcasm is good.
On the Not In My Namers:
“Why were they all marching in favour of Saddam Hussein? If you’d asked any of them, they would have been appalled at the question. Of course they weren’t marching for Saddam. They were marching against war. It would have struck few of them that there was any logical inconsistency in this position. By marching against war, they were marching in favour of a man who had done more for war than perhaps any political leader in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (having initiated wars against Iran, Kuwait, and his own people).”
So true. Delingpole is a marvelously entertaining writer and when he’s right he’s so right. Even when he’s wrong he’s brilliant. I strongly recommend Welcome To Obamaland.
There are things I’ve wanted to write for a while about Obama, actually. I was dismayed when he won the election because his stance on Israel, Islamism, security and related issues seemed very mistaken. If America gets that wrong we all pay the price. I was also distressed by the blind, hysterical way so many in Britain idolised him. They believed this proved their anti-racist credentials, but if anything it hinted at the opposite. Is there not a streak of condescending racism in their refusal to judge Obama by the standards they would any other politician?
Just as their blinkered idolising of Obama hinted at one thinly-veiled bigotry, so did their equally mindless demonisation of Sarah Palin suggest another. The sniggering and sneering at her from the very start was depressing – but what more would you expect from the same bunch who overlooked the way Bill Clinton treated women and who routinely refuse to condemn Islamic states for their brutal mistreatment of the fairer sex?
I don’t agree with everything Palin personally stands for, and yes she sometimes said some surprisingly ignorant things for which she was roundly mocked. But Obama too has come out with some astonishing crap: he thinks Austrian is a language and even got the number of states in the USA wrong. But those who sneer at Palin’s (and before her Bush’s) slip-ups naturally made no fuss about Obama’s mistakes. Hypocritical and patronising.
Over and over they show their true colours. Palin’s family were considered fair game for intrusion and mockery – but Obama’s were completely off-limits, apart from to receive blind praise. And when liberals laughed at those jokes about Sarah Palin deserving to be gang-raped in Harlem, didn’t they show their true colours on every level?
If the British people who childishly idolised Obama channelled the same level of energy into improving their own crap political process then maybe this country wouldn’t be as much of an embarrassment. Besides, it was the same crowd who never fail to turn their noses up at ‘celebrity worship’ when applied to pop culture – talking a load of hot air about a politician you (and your country) have had no say in electing strikes me as much more naff!
Yes, there’s another hypocrisy there. Many British people (not me!)who complain about America ‘interfering’ with our politics were quite happy to discuss the American election as if they had a say in it!
Diane Abbot did excellent impressions of an Obama groupie all the way through the campaign on ‘This Week’ and then the BBC wasted heaven knows how much license payers’ money in the middle of a recession to fly the whole team of that programme to America to talk about the results!
Btw Chas, did you see the footage of yesterday’s demo in Jerusalem against the settlement freeze? I thought the use of the slogan ‘No you can’t’ was brilliant.
I didn’t see it but sounds great. I’ll look it up – thanks!
Chas,
Did you ever get a response from your MP about the Gilad EDM?
My guy wrote back to me. He refused.
That’s a shame Dan.
I’m still waiting to hear from mine (Adam Afriyie). Will chase him up in a bit.
Yes, Mr Delingpole is always readabale, often wise and witty.
There was once an awkward Any Questions for him at a literary festival, (sorry James). He mentioned being a friend of Alain de Botton and then his right wing views were getting short shrift from a left/liberal crowd. An NHS question prompted James to mention his own experiences, having had a ‘bottom problem’. The chair suavely interjected with,”Was this an Alain de Bottom problem?”